Atlantis | Page 6

this
combined to produce extreme discomfort in the travellers. Again and
again, as if uncertain what course to pursue, the boat stopped and
emitted its shrill whistle, which was so stifled in the wild commotion of
the waters that it seemed nothing but the helpless breathing of a hoarse
throat--stopped and went backwards--stopped and went forwards, until
again it came to an uncertain halt, twisting and turning in the whirling
waters, carried aloft, plunged down, apparently lost and submerged in
the darkness.
To be exposed to impressions of this sort for only an hour and a half is

enough gradually to reduce a traveller's nerves to a state of torture. The
proximity of that awful element the surface of which marks the limits
of the one element in which man is capable of living, forces upon the
mind thoughts of death and destruction; all the more so since the
water's tricks seem so incalculable to the landman that he sees danger
where there actually is none. Another thing hard for the man
accustomed to unhampered movement to bear is the close confinement.
All at once he loses his illusion of freedom of will. Activity, the thing
that in the eyes of the European endows life with its sublimest charm,
cannot in the twinkling of an eye turn into absolute passivity.
Nevertheless, despite these novel, distressing experiences, despite
throbbing pulses, over-stimulated senses, and nerves tautened to the
snapping point, the situation is by no means lacking in fascination.
Thus, Frederick von Kammacher felt a flush of exaltation. Life was
straining him to her breast more closely, wildly, passionately than she
had for a long time.
"Either life has again become the one tremendous adventure, or life is
nothing," a voice within him said.
Again the tender lay still. Suddenly it groaned, churned the water, sent
out huge puffs of hissing steam, whistled as if in great fear, once,
twice--Frederick counted seven times--and started off at its utmost
speed, as if to escape Satan's clutches. And now, all at once, it turned,
swept into a region of light, and faced a mighty vision.
The Roland had reached the Needles and was lying tide rode. In the
protection of its vast broadside the little tender seemed to be in a
brilliantly lighted harbour. The impression that the surprising presence
of the ocean greyhound made upon Frederick was in a fortissimo scale.
He had always belonged to that class of men--a class which is not
small--whose senses are open to life's varied abundance. Only on the
rarest occasions he found a thing commonplace or ordinary, and was
never blasé in meeting a novelty. But, after all, there are very few
persons who would be dull to the impressions of an embarkation by
night, outside a harbour in the open waters.

Never before had Frederick been inspired with equal respect for the
might of human ingenuity, for the genuine spirit of his times, as at the
sight of that gigantic black wall rising from the black waters, that
tremendous façade, with its endless rows of round port-holes streaming
out light upon a foaming field of waves protected from the wind. In
comparison with this product, this creation, this triumph of the divine
intellect in man, what were undertakings like the Tower of Babel,
allowing that they were not isolated instances and had actually been
completed.
Sailors were busy letting the gangway-ladder down the flank of the
Roland. Frederick could see that up on deck, at the point where the
ladder was being suspended, a rather numerous group of uniformed
men had gathered, probably to receive the new passengers. His state of
exaltation continued, even while everybody in the tender's saloon,
including himself, suddenly seized with haste, grasped his or her hand
luggage and stood in readiness. In the presence of that improbability,
that Titan of venturesomeness, that floating fairy palace, it was
impossible to cling to the conviction that modern civilisation is all
prose. The most prosaic of mortals here had forced upon him a piece of
foolhardy romance compared with which the dreams of the poets lose
colour and turn pale.
While the tender, dancing coquettishly on the swelling foam, was
warping to the gangway-ladder, high overhead, on the deck of the
Roland, the band struck up a lively, resolute march in a martial yet
resigned strain, such as leads soldiers to battle--to victory or to death.
An orchestra like this, of wind instruments, drums and cymbals was all
that lacked to set the young physician's nerves a-quiver, as in a dance of
fire and flame.
The music ringing from aloft out into the night and descending to the
little tender manoeuvring in the water, was designed to inspire timid
souls with courage and tide them over certain horrors attendant upon
the moment. Beyond lay the